Depp flops, Captain America rules US box-office

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Hollywood heart-throb Johnny Depp suffered the worst box-office debut of his career while Captain America: The Winter Soldier maintained its grip on North American theaters, final figures showed on Monday.

Despite being one of the highest paid actors in Tinseltown, Depp's star power was unable to save US$100 million (S$125.3 million) science-fiction thriller Transcendence from crashing with just US$10.9 million on its opening to take fourth spot.

It was the latest in a series of poor openings for movies starring Depp, coming hard on the heels of The Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows and The Rum Diary. The film, which sees Depp play a scientist who escapes death when his brain is uploaded into a huge computer, was the actor's lowest-grossing opening since 2004's Secret Window, which took US$18.2 million.

While Warner Bros. were left picking over the ashes of Transcendence, Disney toasted another solid weekend from Captain America. The latest big-screen adventures of the iconic Marvel superhero, starring Chris Evans, took in US$25.6 million, figures from box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said.

The film has earned more than US$200 million in North America since its debut earlier in the month, when it had the biggest April opening of all time.

This week's performance meant Captain America held off a strong opening from Heaven Is For Real, starring Greg Kinnear as the father of a four-year-old boy who wakes up from emergency surgery with a story about going to heaven and back. It raked in US$22.5 million for second place.

Third spot was taken by animated children's movie Rio 2, a follow-up to the 2011 hit about a family of blue macaw parrots.

The movie, which features the voices of Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway in the lead roles, took in US$22.2 million in its second weekend.

With Transcendence in fourth, paranormal comedy A Haunted House 2 jumped up the charts to earn fifth place, with US$8.8 million after a month in theatres. The sequel to a 2013 film, it stars Marlon Wayans as a man plagued by ghosts and demons.

The film, which sees Costner playing an American football team's general manager on the day of the NFL draft, picked up US$5.7 million.

"Divergent," the dystopian tale of a young woman in a futuristic society, based on the popular young adult novel by the same name, reeled in US$5.6 million for seventh place.

Sinking from third to eighth spot was horror film Oculus, about an antique mirror possessed with evil spirits. It garnered US$5.2 million.

Rounding out the top ten, biblical epic Noah, starring Russell Crowe, earned US$5.0 million for ninth place and Bears, Disney's documentary about a family of grizzly bears living in Alaska, US$4.8 million.

The Straits Times

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